Lychees !!!

[Jeff Searle]

Well, it's Lychee season now and boy are they good! Were pretty excited because this is the first season our small tree fruited. Anyone else enjoying these?

Jeff

[Jeff Searle]

I should be smiling but, it was kind of hard holding the camera and holding the fruit by yourself.

jeff

[Really full garden]

Sadly we dont have lychees here.We have rambutan which is a poor substitute.The Chinese call them Hairy Lychee.

I have four small lychee trees that I plan to plant out at my new place up in the volcanoes.Lychee actually does better with some cold temps.I think they are beautiful trees.

[Peter]

Oh man, I'm jealous!!

[epicure3]

They are mighty tasty and do well here. Unfortunately, no room for such a tree.

[BS Man about Palms]

  Jeff Searle said:

I should be smiling but, it was kind of hard holding the camera and holding the fruit by yourself.

jeff

If not your avatar, this pic should be on your profile page. Or one like it! Thats great!

[Moose]

Jeff - been eating them off Rosita's tree, harvested the rest and pruned the tree. Just brought a bag home for my son. He is leaving for Boy Scout summer camp in North Carolina this evening. Nice snack for the bus ride.

Scott - I like rambutan. Claude brought seeds back from the Big Island. They struggled here for two years and then became mulch. Seems we always want what the other guy can grow.

Best regards,

Ron.

[aztropic]

Surprisingly,alot of tropical fruit is available fresh from our Lee Lee oriential supermarket here in Arizona.Just picked up a bag of lychees and a box of mangosteens.Right now,they also have rambutan,longon,jakfruit,and a host of other fresh fruits and vegetables that I have never seen before.Have also seen durian and breadfruit on occasion along with cherimoya's.Pic is of a mangosteen and they are delicious!

aztropic

Mesa,Arizona

[SubTropicRay]

My neighbor down the street is having his 11th annual Lychee party tomorrow. The table will be set up under a big Litchi chinensis tree. Everyone leaves the party with a nice sized bag of fruit.

[ariscott]

Can't grow lychee here. I have rambutan trees growing. They are only about a metre at the moment. I prefer rambutan myself.... I can eat them the whole day every day.... YUM!!

Regards, Ari

[aussiearoids]

Recent plantings of Dypsis dark mealy bug , a row of several along part of a Lychee orchard.

Hoping to taste Pulasan next year . I got some marcots of 2 different females and a male .

This a tropical relative of rambutan , with larger fruits that are just bumpy instead of hairy .

Malaysian ultra tropical species , something to plant next to the Lipstick MMMM

[amazondk]

Jeff,

There was a guy in Davie that had a Lychee plantaton that I went to years ago. I don´t know if he is still there. I had a lychee at my house in Fort Lauderdale that every few years had great crops. I have a few rambutans planted at my place here. I figure we do not have a cold enough season for Lychees to do well. There are a lot of them planted in Sao Paulo though.

dk

[daxin]

We have fresh lychee now in Bay Area Asian Supermarkets. The fruits are still not fully ripe yet with half-green shells. When I went back to visit China last summer, I got to taste two lychee varieties that were new to me: the first one is called King Lychee and the fruits were twice the size of typical lychee with slightly larger seeds and excellant flavor; the other one is Seedless Lychee that is truly seedless but the flavor is so-so. I had two seedlings that I started from fruits bought here in 2007, but since they have almost no chance of surviving outdoors in my area, I gave them off to my local community college where they have a big heated greenhouse.

[Jeff Searle]

  aztropic said:

Surprisingly,alot of tropical fruit is available fresh from our Lee Lee oriential supermarket here in Arizona.Just picked up a bag of lychees and a box of mangosteens.Right now,they also have rambutan,longon,jakfruit,and a host of other fresh fruits and vegetables that I have never seen before.Have also seen durian and breadfruit on occasion along with cherimoya's.Pic is of a mangosteen and they are delicious!

aztropic

Mesa,Arizona

Scott,

Of all places, I think your pretty lucky to have all those fruit offered near you. Take full advantage as much as you can and enjoy!

Jeff

[aztropic]

Scott,

Of all places, I think your pretty lucky to have all those fruit offered near you. Take full advantage as much as you can and enjoy!

Jeff

[aztropic]

Another tropical fruit tree I am playing with is the star apple.This one has survived here for two years but could use a sunnier spot.Arizona sun is dangerously hot in the summer,so when I try out new plants,I like to see if they can even survive our climate with some shade first.

aztropic

Mesa,Arizona

[aztropic]

Ice cream bean grows and flowers like a weed out here,but has never given me any fruit.This guy is an aggressive grower,but if it doesn't start giving up some fruit,won't be around much longer!

aztropic

Mesa,Arizona

[joe_OC]

Love Lychees...My brother and parents are growing them. There are huge trees here in Orange County (larger than some single story homes). Scott, did not know that you ca get fresh Mangosteens! going to have to hit the Asian markets here to get some. We also eat Jack Fruit and Durian...yummy!

[Manolitus]

Jeff,

Is there a forum you don't post on ??!!

Anyway, yes that picture of you with the Lychee's is better than your profile picture, change it !!

My wife and me have had more Lychee this summer than any other I can remember.

I really like them because of their distinctive taste. When I was in Australia a few weeks back I ate some rambutans in Cairns. WOW ! imagine a hairy Lychee the size of a billiard ball. And sweet as can be. I had about 15 of them. Mercy.

You know Steve Stern has an orchard of Lychees at his place. I think he has about 40-60 mature trees. He told me that they did not produce as much this year.

Anyway, talk to you soon.

Manny

[Manolitus]

  aztropic said:

Surprisingly,alot of tropical fruit is available fresh from our Lee Lee oriential supermarket here in Arizona.Just picked up a bag of lychees and a box of mangosteens.Right now,they also have rambutan,longon,jakfruit,and a host of other fresh fruits and vegetables that I have never seen before.Have also seen durian and breadfruit on occasion along with cherimoya's.Pic is of a mangosteen and they are delicious!

aztropic

Mesa,Arizona

AZTROPIC,

You are one lucky dude. You know because I live in Miami, Florida, I think the state government has all sorts of stuff in place preventing the truly exotic stuff from coming like what you have in that oriental market.

I have only seen rambutans once in a Publix supermarket but they were nasty. But none of the other stuff. I have a little mangosteen in the ground that just will not grow. It sits there and does nothing. I also have a breadfruit tree that got beaten back pretty good by our winter a few months back. She is coming back with a vengeance. Also, no self respecting cuban wouldn't have a mamey tree. Small but incredibly sweet fruits she produces. Top three for sure. I also have a soursop tree ( guanabana ) very tropical that barely gets by here. They put out so much fruit that they make it.

Anyway, enjoy your good eaten. Still haven't tried Durian yet, but looking forward to it.

Manny

[Palm Dave]

Anyway, enjoy your good eaten. Still haven't tried Durian yet, but looking forward to it.

Manny

[Eric in Orlando]

Our lychee tree flowered for the first time but didn't set fruit. The longan also did and is loaded, so is the white sapote. The mangoes were flowering when the frost hit but one of them ('Carrie') reflowered and has about 2 dozen fruit forming. The macadamias have a few nuts this year. The carambolas are always loaded. I'm still waiting for the jackfruit to fruit again. Its about 20ft tall and has fruited in the past but as soon as the fruit gets to golf ball size they drop. Also have a Kwai Muk, Artocarpus hypargyraeus that is about 7ft and I have been waiting for it to fruit.

Anyone growing Garcinia benthamii? This is supposed to be a hardier species, it has survived 2 winters here, and this past winter got to 30F one night but it has no damage.

[Peter]

Mmm, Longan! I'm from Toronto where we have no restrictions on bringing in fruit, so Rambutan, Longan, Lychee, Mangosteen, fresh(not frozen Durian), etc.. can all be had at the Asian supermarkets. Here in California we can't grow most of those, and the fruit is very hard to find, and when I do occasionally find it, it's not fresh and barely has any taste :-(.

[joe_OC]

  Peter said:

Mmm, Longan! I'm from Toronto where we have no restrictions on bringing in fruit, so Rambutan, Longan, Lychee, Mangosteen, fresh(not frozen Durian), etc.. can all be had at the Asian supermarkets. Here in California we can't grow most of those, and the fruit is very hard to find, and when I do occasionally find it, it's not fresh and barely has any taste :-(.

Peter, let me know when you are in the OC. I'll tell you where you can go to get the fresh stuff. In the past few years, all of those fruits have become readily available and are fresh. Mangosteen is the only one that I have not seen fresh.

[DoomsDave]

All I've had are canned litchees, good, but, I'll bet fresh are better . . . .

[joe_OC]

Dave,

You need to check the produce area next time you are at the Vietnamese grocery store!

  Dave from So-Cal said:

All I've had are canned litchees, good, but, I'll bet fresh are better . . . .

[Jeff Searle]

Joe,

So where are they getting all the fruit? Hawaii and Florida?

[Eric in Orlando]

as for fresh fruit, lychees and jaboticoba are tied for tops followed closely by raspberries/blackberries and mangoes. Acerola and genipa are up there, too.

[bubba]

Don, I talked to your guy in Davie, who is still growing Lychi quite well. I was referred to him when trying to locate a guy in Davie who had attempted to grow coffee unsucessfully. Your Lychi guy told me that the key to his sucess was timing. He made certain his fruit came in a little earlier than bulk growers. He gave me the impression he was rather good at it!

[joe_OC]

  Jeff Searle said:

Joe,

So where are they getting all the fruit? Hawaii and Florida?

Hi Jeff,

That would be my guess. I would not be surprised if a portion of it was coming from California now.

[Moose]

  Dave from So-Cal said:

All I've had are canned litchees, good, but, I'll bet fresh are better . . . .

Have you had canned Mango compared to Fresh? Enough said!

Ron.

[MattyB]

How come I can never find these fresh? We shop semi-regularly at Vien Dong and Thuan Phat and we only see the frozen stuff. We do see fresh Jack Fruit, but Litchi, Mangosteen, they're always frozen. Paul and I had some litchi this weekend and it was good, but the Mangosteen is butt nasty.

[joe_OC]

Matt - Very cool that you shop there. I don't know why SD stores don't have them. They are readily available up here. Maybe when you went, they were not in season? BTW, if you like mangoes, get the Thai "Champagne" variety. They are smaller and yellow. Much more flavor and not as fibrous as regular mangoes.

[8er-moni]

Hi!

I love Lychees, too --- to eat an to put the seeds in a pot.

But it is indoors very hard to get them big - or I did'nt find the right way

[Morabeza]

Congratulations Jeff Searle on your first crop! Very exciting.

I like Lychees a lot but I simply adore Rambutans and just like Ari I could eat them all day, every day!

[aussiearoids]

Lychees do better in sub-tropics , its just to hot for them in the tropics and they only bear well every few years when the winter is cold, some well know selections have been developed in north Queensland . Herb Bosworth from Innnisfail has some numbered selections and Salathiel was selected from the many growing at Kamerunga Research Station in Cairns. It is usually propagated by marcot.

For several years when I lived in Childers , Christmas time was Lychee time , and boxes of 2'nd quality fruit was gorged on . I knew a few pickers who worked on the several farms that had many hundreds of acres of Lychees and avacadoes . Death by guacamole .. I can highly recomend lychee daquiri , and frozen lychees in champagne.

[Morabeza]

  aussiearoids said:

I can highly recomend lychee daquiri , and frozen lychees in champagne.

Ohhhh Michael both of those sound divine. Sometimes there is Lychee sorbet in the market here and it's heavenly!

[Jeff Searle]

  Morabeza79 said:

  aussiearoids said:

I can highly recomend lychee daquiri , and frozen lychees in champagne.

Ohhhh Michael both of those sound divine. Sometimes there is Lychee sorbet in the market here and it's heavenly!

That daquiri thing sounds great! Andrea made several bags w/ approx. 15-20 in each bag and froze them. We were told how, and that later in the year they would be just as fresh as if they were just collected. So, we'll have them throughout the year. Yummy......

Jef

[Palm Dave]

Have you ever noticed that even tropical plants like to prove one wrong. I earlier wrote that I though my seven year old Lychee tree was infertile because I had read that 50 percent of Lychee trees are infertile. Well, mine proved me wrong by producing clusters of lychees way up on its upper canopy for the very first time. I happened to be watching some Blue Jays flying around up there and caught sight of the immature fruit - gave me a real double take. I was really convinced that it was doomed to a life as a shade tree. What a pleasant surprise!

[ron@springhammock]

Thanks for the heads up! Unfortunately, this is an off year for my tree, but the local asian market has lychee, rambutan and mangosteen. The mangosteen was a bit mushy but not bad, the rambutan was pretty insipid but the lychee was very tasty. I'm guessing the lychee is from florida so the freshest, while the other two suffer from their long travels.